Path to Attolis
by Convenient Alias
Summary: Eugenides is the king and Attolia's husband, but it's going to take some getting used to. For both of them. Or, seven steps on Eugenides and Attolia's journey to accepting their life together, and to Eugenides learning what it is to be king. Oneshot, takes place between Queen of Attolia and King of Attolia.


1.

They didn't often sleep the night through together. Even if they could easily make their way to each other's chambers, Eugenides even without his attendants noticing, it was risky. She was the queen and he was the king and they both knew that while no one would barge in on them unannounced, they might easily have night callers needing them for one thing and another. And with the political climate as it was, they were too exhausted at night to do much more than sleep anyway.

This was how they rationalized it. The truth was that Attolia could take hours to fall asleep, often plagued by insomnia, and while Eugenides would fall asleep quickly (often with the help of lithium) he would rarely stay asleep for the entire night, and he hated to wake her with his nightmares. She supposed it was not much comfort for him to awaken with his former enemy, even torturer, lying at his side, pressed against his chest. It would take her long minutes to remind him of where he was and why she was there with him. He would apologize as soon as he was fully aware of his surroundings, offer her smiles and kisses to reassure her that he was fine, but it never quite made up for the long moments where he would stare into her eyes with hopeless dread.

Attolia herself loved to lie with her husband in bed, loved his presence by her side, loved knowing she could let herself be vulnerable to him in ways she had never imagined opening herself before. And she knew Eugenides liked to fall asleep by her side, and that her presence in his bed did not actually worsen his nightmares (he said they were just as bad on any other night, depending more on the events of the day). So they would try to get through the long nights together anyway, on occasion. A dubious treat.

One night it was the early morning hours when they were both awakened simultaneously, although on this particular night no nightmares had come to Eugenides as yet. Instead, the noise that awoke them was a gunshot.

Eugenides was out of bed in an instant and at the window, staring off into the night.

Attolia sat up, glanced in the direction of the window, and sighed. "Come back to bed, Eugenides."

"There was a shot," Eugenides said. "You must have heard it."

"Indeed," Attolia said. "Loud for this time of night." She patted the bed next to her. "If it was anything important, Teleus will inform us in the morning. You can inquire if you wish."

Eugenides nodded, but he still hesitated, lingering at the window.

"You are not a member of the guard. You are the king," Attolia said. "Such matters are for you to think on later and not to deal with now. Come back to bed."

Slowly, he walked back and sat by Attolia's side. "What do you suppose it was?"

"A stranger at the gates. Someone hostile. Or perhaps an intruder in the castle," Attolia said. He was in a mood. It would take forever to get him to go back to sleep. Silently, she cursed the guards for using a gun instead of their much quieter and more efficient crossbows. What had they been thinking?

"Perhaps a thief," Eugenides said.

Attolia kissed his neck. "You are the king," she reminded him again, softly. "They aren't shooting at you."

He nodded and lay back down again, but they both lay awake together for a long time, and Attolia drifted off long before he did.

/.../.../

2.

"You have a new pendant," the queen of Eddis noted to Attolia, a couple days before she took her leave. No need to stay long in Attolia after the wedding. The Attolian court would be glad when most of the Eddisians here for the ceremony were gone. Attolia looked forward to running her court as she liked without their interference as well, although she felt a bit regretful that Eddis was leaving.

"I do," she said. "He gave it to me this morning."

No need to clarify who she meant.

Eddis snorted. "Indeed. And I don't suppose you know where he got it?"

Attolia paused and considered the matter carefully. She had never really thought about the sources of gifts coming from the thief. He used to leave them in her room after sneaking around her castle, and his intrusion and impudence was more of a concern than the gifts themselves.

Of course, the answer was fairly obvious based off what Relius had told her of his habits in Eddis' court. "I suppose he stole it." The likelihood of him actually buying her something was low, especially if it was something he expected her to value. And he had put the pendant in her hand with an air simultaneously mischievous and solemn. She had not questioned him, but had worn the pendant all day. And he had seemed pleased.

"Mm," Eddis said. "And where do you suppose he stole it from?"

Attolia shrugged. She rarely kept track of who wore what jewelry at court. That was a job for noble women with no responsibilities of their own except to make their husbands look good. Being the queen was a bit more taxing. "No one has complained yet."

"And I don't suppose anyone will," Eddis said. "He stole it from me."

"You?"

"And it's one of the few pendants he actually said suited me," Eddis said. "Positively offensive."

Attolia fingered the chain. "I can return it to you if you want it."

"Keep it," Eddis said. "What the thief of Eddis steals is meant to stay stolen."

"He isn't your thief anymore." The words escaped Attolia's lips before she could stop them, and she bit her lip. She'd grown possessive of Eugenides very quickly. But she'd chosen him to be her husband—surely it was only natural.

"I noticed," Eddis said. And before Attolia could apologize or respond, she reached out and touched the pendant on Attolia's neck. "If he were, he might still steal my jewelry but it would end up on an altar somewhere. He gave it to you instead." She smiled. "A childish way or declaring loyalty, don't you think?"

"He's young," Attolia said. She shook her head. "I really should give the pendant back."

"Keep it," Eddis said. "He's not the thief of Eddis anymore, but he's still my favorite cousin. If he decides my pendant is meant to grace your neck, I defer to his judgment. You too will have to stand by his decisions." She smiled. "He is your king."

"He's an idiot," Attolia muttered. But she kept the pendant, although she doubted she'd be able to bear wearing it in front of the Eddisian representatives anymore. They had given her and Eugenides odd looks earlier in the day, or at least odder than usual, and now she supposed she knew why.

Eugenides, of course, never explained the pendant, much like he never explained his other gifts, or explained himself, period. Attolia hoped she and Eddis had interpreted it correctly. He seemed pleased when she wore it, so she supposed it didn't really matter all that much.

/.../.../

3.

He got letters from home regularly. Half of them he gave to Attolia to read or read aloud to her, and for the most part they were rather amusing. His cousins were perhaps more straightforward and friendly than the Attolian court, but Attolia still did not envy him. The magus' letters were all dry with an occasional dash of humor, and although, since he was still in Eddis and excluded from court life, they contained little up to date news, they still somehow managed to be informative, even when they detailed nothing more than recent literary efforts in Eddis or the magus' studies in botany.

There were only three people whose letters Eugenides never read aloud: Eddis, the minister of war, and Agape.

It was only the last that bothered her.

"Who is this Agape anyway?" she asked him once after he had finished reading one letter from said woman and carefully put it away in a desk drawer.

"A cousin," Eugenides said. "Can't remember if she's related more closely to Eddis or me. You know we're all one tangled incestuous brood." He wiggled his eyebrows.

Attolia was not amused. "A lover?"

Eugenides blinked. "Pardon?"

He always managed to make Attolia feel wrong footed in accusing him. But she didn't back down "Was she your lover?"

"No."

A moment of silence.

"You know, I did agree not to have any mistresses," Eugenides said. "Trust me, she isn't sending me any love letters." He took the letter back out of his desk drawer. "You can read it if you wish."

"No," Attolia said. "I don't need to."

Another moment of silence.

"I never had any lovers," Eugenides said. "By the time I was old enough to consider it, I had lost my hand." Lost, he said. Carefully did not say how it was lost. "Any offers at that point I would have regarded as pity."

"I'm sorry."

"Someday you'll have to stop apologizing," Eugenides said. "Besides, I didn't suffer for lack of women. My thoughts were occupied by one woman in particular."

Attolia flushed, caught between lingering guilt and embarrassment. She never knew what to do when Eugenides talked about loving her. Better to leave it as something silent between the two of them, mostly unspoken, than constantly declared. And generally that was how it was.

Still, she didn't exactly mind either.

"So you were jealous of Agape," Eugenides said. "You know, I once considered setting her up with Sounis."

"A terrible thing to do to any woman."

"Better than casting Eddis to the wolves. I'm surprised you aren't jealous of Eddis instead."

Attolia snorted. "As if the two of you would ever be together."

"You'd be surprised how many people think we were."

"Many people are fools."

"Mm. Yes. Yes, they are."

/.../.../

4.

"You've barely touched your food," Attolia said.

She spoke quietly, which didn't stop half the table from trying to overhear her, although only those sitting very close succeeded. Eugenides, who was sitting next to her, shrugged.

"I'm not very hungry, I suppose."

It could be true. But to trust Eugenides, consummate liar, to tell the truth about his food preferences or wellbeing, would be utter folly. She looked over his plate—large chunks of meat and bread with cheese to spread on it. The bread was half eaten, the meat barely touched.

Typical of her kitchen to provide Eugenides with something he would have to cut, knowing full well how he would struggle with his one hand and a hook. She would have to have a word with them. For now, she slid the plate over and began to cut up the meat for him herself into pieces smaller than bite size and making sure the entire table saw how in attacking the king they had given a tedious task to their queen.

A testimony to the court, and, although no one else need know it, a penance for herself. She had done this to him. Made it so he couldn't even cut up his own food. She could never make it up to him, but in the small ways at least she could try.

"Attolia," Eugenides said.

She looked up.

"I'm not hungry." He smiled at her persuasively. "You don't have to cut up my meat."

Trying to spare her in front of her court. She smiled back, polite and angry, though not angry at him. "You are the king," she said. "Set the court a good example by eating dinner." She continued to cut.

"They hardly need an example to follow," he said, gesturing at the rest of the court, which, although still engaged in eavesdropping, continued to eat hardily.

She smiled more widely. "Indeed?" Eating at table when Eugenides had been given inconvenient food to humiliate him, for an injury she herself had inflicted. She cleared her throat and raised her voice. "Until the king eats, no one eats."

Conversation ceased, and all the way down the table faces turned towards the head, shocked at the ire in the queen's voice.

"My queen," Eugenides said, touching her shoulder.

She pushed the plate back to him. "Here. Eat."

He lifted his fork and put a bite of food into his mouth and chewed and swallowed, a smile on his face.

Something was still off. She took a bite of the meat herself, straight from his plate (something she had done with no one's food since poisoning her last husband). She chewed and then spit the bite out into a napkin.

Sand.

"With me," she said, standing. She stalked out of the dining hall, Eugenides following close behind her. In the corridor, she stopped.

"You can tell me about these things," she said.

"I don't need you to raze the kitchens," Eugenides said. "I haven't figured out who it is yet." He shrugged. "It could be anyone."

"You are the king."

"I'm a goatfoot who broke into the fortress at Ephrata and stole their queen," Eugenides said. "Or had you forgotten?"

She shook her head. "I expect more from my staff."

"They're loyal to you."

"Then they should respect my choice of king."

"They will in time," Eugenides said. "I promise you." He lifted her hand and kissed it. "Be patient?"

Attolia sighed. "We can't have you going hungry in the meantime. I'll have some food sent to my room for you, and we'll find whoever is in the kitchens."

"I won't object. No need to eviscerate anyone, though."

Attolia smiled, all teeth. "Come now, Attolis. You didn't marry me for my kindness."

/.../.../

5.

He didn't write to Eddis every day. He wasn't a homesick child lonely for home—that particular mindset he had overcome in Sounis prison years ago. He only wrote to her once every week or so, but his letters were long and detailed, not full of political matters (king of Attolia now, he could no longer hand inside information to the leader of another country) but full of the troubles he could not speak about to anyone else, even to his own wife. Troubles he would share with no one, were he able to bear them alone.

He wrote to her his worries about Sophos, who still hadn't shown up. Attolia sympathized with his feelings on the matter, it was true, but Eddis, who he thought had once been in love with Sophos, understood his affection far better than a woman whose only experience with him had been throwing him in her dungeons. Eddis wrote back that she and the magus worried as well, but perhaps no news was good news with Sounis as chaotic as it currently was.

He wrote to her reminiscing over old times, recounting stories and anecdotes from Eddis' court that she knew as well as or better than he. The point wasn't to tell her a good story but to share with her the past he used to share with everyone around him, a past that no one in Attolia knew about beyond the sparse rumors that had travelled all the way over the mountain. Eddis wrote back with laughter and her own memories, and he would laugh in turn.

Mostly, though, he wrote to her about his queen.

"She wants me to lead," he wrote to Eddis. "I want to do what she wants me to do, but you know as well as I that I have no experience. And how do I take power over the country without taking that power from her?"

"She'll let you know her limits," Eddis wrote back. "Trust her and pay attention to how she feels. If your decisions are wise, she will respect them and be pleased to share the burden of power with one fit to carry it."

"I'm only adding to the pressure on her back," he wrote to Eddis. "She sees my nightmares, the way sometimes I'll start at her voice. And the way she looks at my hook sometimes, or my stump arm when the hook is off, I can see what she's thinking. I'm trying to help her but I only make her feel guiltier. Maybe I should stay away."

"It's too late to stay away," Eddis wrote back. "You married her. What she did to you was terrible—let her feel a little guilty. At the end of the day she knows you still love her. Show her that she is worth what you had to lose."

"Her court hates me," he wrote to her. "I'm only making the political situation worse. We're trying to stabilize the country, but with me as the king it bucks control. It resents an outsider. I might destroy her country while trying to heal it."

"Her court has always been venomous," she wrote back. "It would resent any king. You might not look like the best choice, but you can make a difference. Attolia knows that or she would never have married you."

"How do you always know what to say?" he wrote to her. "Sometimes I think you know my wife better than I do."

"I haven't a clue how her mind works," Eddis wrote back. "But she writes to me nearly as often as you, and she worries just as much. Do you want me to quote her verbatim?"

He laughed, reading that letter, and folded it carefully away with the other ones in his desk drawer, wondering whether Attolia had a similar stash of her own.

/.../.../

6.

When she found a brooch left on her bedside table that she actually recognized, she knew it was about time to take a stand. She pulled Eugenides aside in the early morning to give him a stern talking to.

"You stole Baroness Anacritus' brooch," she said.

"It looked terrible on her," Eugenides said.

"So you did it for her own interest," Attolia said, raising an eyebrow.

"Not even slightly," Eugenides said. "For my own interest. I thought it would look a lot better on my wife."

Attolia sighed. "You'll have my court up in arms."

"They're already up in arms. Everyone hates me," Eugenides said. "I might as well have fun."

"They won't respect you more for causing trouble."

"If you're so disapproving then why are you wearing it?"

Attolia glanced down at the brooch. She had made an attendant pin it to a dress that contrasted with it extremely well, making it look both highly visible and terribly attractive. "Well, if my king decides it suits me well, I will stand by his judgment."

"Mm," Eugenides said. "Good choice. It looks beautiful on you."

He kissed her lightly, eyes dancing with humor and attraction.

Attolia kissed him back but shook her head as soon as he was done. "Don't make a habit of it."

"I'm a thief. It's what we do."

"You're a king now," Attolia said. "Not a thief."

"I'm a king and a thief," Eugenides said. "A credit to my god." He wiggled his eyebrows.

Attolia said, "Well, if it's for your god."

"One must not offend Eugenides," he said. "Besides, not all old habits are bad. You've said you're fond of the earrings I gave you."

"Don't get too cocky," Attolia said. Still, she couldn't help herself from smiling. She'd been furious on receiving the earrings, of course, but she liked to wear them now. In a way, they had been her engagement present. "I suppose you can steal jewelry if you must. But please don't start a war."

"Who, me? Never."

/.../.../

7.

It wasn't exactly rare for Attolis to stare out the window contemplatively as Attolia waited for him in bed. Tonight, however, he wasn't staring. He was glaring.

"Come to bed," Attolia said.

He did, but that only transferred his glare to her. "Your court is a cesspit."

She yawned. "Tell someone who hasn't been ruling it for the past decade or so."

"I do. I complain to Eddis regularly," Attolis said. "Not that I give her details. Though the things I could tell her about, say, Baron Susa…" He sighed. "Just to start. I thought I knew what you had to deal with, but…"

"You've only gotten a small taste," Attolia said. "Wait a couple years and get back to me then."

"I'll be dead by then at this rate," Attolis said. "We have to clean this place up."

"Easier said than done."

He slumped against her. "We'll see. I'm working on Erondites."

"You still have another few months for that."

"We'll see," he repeated. "Who's the next target after that?"

"Don't get ahead of yourself. You still have to win Teleus over, and my entire court," Attolia pointed out. "My barons will muddle on without your interference, but if you can't win at least the guard over, you can't be of much use."

"I'm working on that too," he said. "I can multi-task. Besides, what's the point of pandering to your court when I'm going to purge half of it within a year?"

Attolia gave him a look.

He sighed. "A third?"

She raised an eyebrow.

"A fourth? It doesn't have to be within the year, but we need to take care of at least that many."

"It isn't news," she said. "Be patient. This is dangerous ground." She kissed him. "All things come in time."

"We're going to have a magnificent court, Irene. Like Eddis. Except better."

"Mhm."

"Don't believe me?"

"Of course I believe you, my king," Attolia said."Go to sleep."

He sighed and folded his body around hers. Tonight, perhaps, would be one of those nights when he managed to sleep without nightmares. Attolia hoped so. She herself would dream, sleeping or waking, of the new day to come with him at her side.

/.../.../

/.../.../

/.../.../

AN: This fic was written for the Hamiathes Gift Exchange on AO3, as a gift for Questioning Silence. Their request was a piece on Eugenides' and Attolia's relationship development during Queen of Attolia and King of Attolia, with some Eddis on the side.

So. Here it is, at last posted here as well. When I first started writing, I was aiming for a 5+1 fic that would be "Five times Eugenides and Attolia faced their past and one time they looked to the future." This provided some focus for a number of the scenes, since this piece has no really central plot. Some scenes, however, diverged from that, and now I would say that's not so much the focus. Call this a fic where Eugenides and Attolia are struggling to overcome their past and come to terms with the life they're going to share together.

Anyways. Reviews would be much appreciated! Hope you enjoyed.


End file.
